I'm not saying I disagree with it necessarily, I don't even understand what you're suggesting enough to disagree or agree with it. It's definitely not _obvious_ to me that the internet has somehow lifted so many people out of poverty, I just don't understand what you mean.
Look at the US. We went from ~0% internet penetration in 1990 to 75% in 2017. How much have real wages changed since then?
We fantasize about an impoverished person learning a new skill, but it's not the reality.
I am gonna want some analysis based on actual numbers of some kind that shows the internet did those things, and it lifted so many people out of poverty.
(For starters, I don't even know if fewer people are "in poverty" now than pre-internet or not!)
Your suspicion is wrong. GDP per capita has increased significantly in emerging markets where cheap labor creates these "new types of products", with China being the prominent example
> I don't even know if fewer people are "in poverty" now than pre-internet or not!
That is a well known fact, you'll just have to google it.
> I am gonna want some analysis based on actual numbers of some kind that shows the internet did those things
There are countless analyses on the benefits of globalization which was enabled in part by the advance of near-instantaneous telecommunication
Every innovation has consequences short and long term.
Corporations have lobbied to take away Net Neutrality, and to institute throttling and make running a personal web site much more expensive. Social media sites de-prioritize regular users under corporate (paid) marketing posts...
These days you have to pay to be seen, the Internet was originally based on having everyone on an equal playing field, and now everything is being based around the new rules to prevent us from going back.
The Internet is becoming less effective because it's no longer an equal playing field. Its becoming much more expensive and complex over time to run an independent web presence, when in the past it was simple and inexpensive, I think that's the major issue.
I wish that were true. It feels more like the internet is a reflection of a very small number of greedy, amoral people from the bay area.
If your site requires any scripting at all, it's not a "simple web site".
If you want to use a platform like WIX, sure it's easy, but the minute they run broke and need to shut down you're screwed. Also having your own (independent) domain pointing to a web site that you made is very costly to a layman without an enterprise account...
There is literally no impact on personal web sites. You neither pay more, nor are you throttled.
"In Portugal, with no net neutrality, internet providers are starting to split the net into packages," he wrote. "A huge advantage for entrenched companies, but it totally ices out startups trying to get in front of people which stifles innovation. This is what's at stake, and that's why we have to save net neutrality."[1]
[1]https://www.businessinsider.com/net-neutrality-portugal-how-...
The crappy swings at CaTV-style service bundling that the telcos have whiffed so far such as Uverse failed to grab enough momentum to jack any of the internet streaming video limelight from youtube, netflix, or really anything from anything else at all. Who really uses Comcast's, or even Verizon FIOS' bundled voice service? A gas station before they get fed up?
Also, please consider Verizon's NXDOMAIN[0]: Purposefully hijacking RFC behavior in order to slurp in a few extra ad clicks off of granny. And if that doesn't just scream "Corporate Governance", I've heard they know which porn I visit. I mean, no surprise here, but my point is that while I really like my car insurance and recommend it to my friends, boy howdy, I have never enjoyed interacting with any telco for any reason, ever.
But, I wonder--if the FCC had never bothered with regulating away the gale-force of swarming telcos voraciously borging away at the PCS spectrum in the 1990s, would MVNE services even be available today? And if they weren't, or were just really shabby, How would The Bell Collective choose to market its services to the low end of the cube market? I mean would they program customers to remit extra currency units for a special Verizon speed-charge port for your alcove or something? Their service couldn't possibly be that bad. Everybody here would be out of the job.
Nowadays, AT&T Uverse keeps putting on for some reason, meanwhile at Comcast and Verizon, their top lobbyists have miraculously cured their chronic internet content aversion syndrome, commence with bundling Netflix. On the other side of the cubefarm, just past that one weird closet nobody ever goes into, Verizon Wireless is slowing some of its MVNO customers.[1] This is fair play too, since two years ago I'd say. Who is to blame them for propping up their own quality of service at their competitors expense if there is no regulatory recourse?
I realize that Verizon Wireless and Verizon Verizon are not the same Verizon, for some Verizon, even though they're both owned by Verizon. Regarding Verizon, I have met many former and current Verizon customers. I assure you, we are very certain that neither Verizon nor Verizon Verizon would deign to charge you any less out of the goodness of its heart.
Helpfully, they seem quite eager to itemize regulatory fees and taxes.
So I'd say you're triple-right about looking at Verizon-er, uh, I mean Portugal.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNS_hijacking#Manipulation_by_...
[1] How MVNOs compare to Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint: https://www.tutela.com/blog/best-mvno-us-2018-consumer-cellu...
I wish more people internalised this fact.
Everything has consequences. I am pretty sure you would prefer the life you live now than what even kings live 300 years ago.
Not to mention, ignoring any other measures of quality of life or progress besides raw dollars. It's judging capitalism via a metric internal to capitalism. Pure circular reasoning. E.g. subsistence farmers in rural areas made 0$ and were "poor" by that metric, now they work 14h a day at factories for 2$ a day and are "not in poverty" anymore. Congratulatory handshakes all around!
1. https://ourworldindata.org/poverty-home-production-and-consu...
Almost none of the desperately poor had internet between 1990-2000, yet poverty fell steeply.
So I don't have exact data and technically I am guessing the impact but considering how many people live in countries like India, China, African countries, I would assume internet has helped millions out of poverty because without internet, they would not be able to do things to make a living that they do today. Go to upwork.com for example and see ppl from all over the world making a decent living for themselves even if it is low wages for rich countries.
To me the sentiment of GPs post felt like "internet makes it better on average for all of us". You're "now I very easy can find even cheaper workers" doesn't support that, even though it certainly is an improvement to a select few at the very bottom.
1. "a select few" is disingenuous. A lot of people have benefited from it.
2. One could say that morally, the people "at the very bottom" deserve more help than "the broader local population in richer countries".
2. Its nice you want to help the people who have it the worst. But you better be ready for the consequences, like a fascist getting 23% of votes a few days ago in a local german election. What people feel is important. Yes, the policy might be raising living standards of everyone. But if it predominantly helps those at the top of the capitalist system and some "few" people far away, then people will feel screwed over and demand change. Though by now we seem to get closer to "revolution". I'd prefer not to live through a revolution.
Maybe this can count as more of a smartphone thing an internet thing.. but it's still largely an internet thing that would allow someone in a rough spot to still be able to connect with people online and look/apply for jobs.
Not that I know the answer, but I would have to see a source on this. Why would a device that may increase access to job postings, but a non-homeless job candidate is much more likely to have than a homeless person, increase the chances of said homeless person in getting a job? I'm not even sure that the ability to access job postings is the main problem there.
Yes, it does help quite a bit. It’s a $50-100 setup and even without data they can go to any million places with free WiFi and get emails, call job listings, keep in touch with family members. It’s a pretty big deal to them.
1. Comparing the chances of a homeless person in the modern world with a smartphone, to a homeless person in the modern world without a smartphone.
2. Comparing the chances of a homeless person in the modern world with a smartphone, to a homeless person in a hypothetical internetless world (where noone can have a smartphone).
The org you volunteered with dealt with comparison #1 above. We're discussing comparison #2.
>>>Not that I know the answer, but I would have to see a source on this. Why would a device that may increase access to job postings, but a non-homeless job candidate is much more likely to have than a homeless person, increase the chances of said homeless person in getting a job? I'm not even sure that the ability to access job postings is the main problem there.
>> [My reply about first hand seeing it]
>We're discussing comparison #2.
I think whatever meaning you had in another thread hasn't been in the one I replied to.
That said, your experience provides an important data point too. I would be curious to know whether it's the phone access or the "among other things" that you refer to, which I assume means other kinds of aid, training, and support, that provides most of the value in them finding a job.
Is the phone worth more than the sleeping bag? Depends on the temperature. But, yes for the most part the phone is helpful. I would guess a lot get sold, but in those cases they are typically going to someone that does actually want it. Let’s be honest, a Samsung whatever 5 isn’t going to be traded for a 5th of whiskey and sold eventually to some highschooler, they wouldn’t be caught dead with that phone.
People have this impression that homeless are all 60-80 year old bums harassing you for change, there are a lot that have jobs, live in their cars, and could really use a phone, even with their families, or live in other people’s houses. The invisible homeless.
Do they? How?
Are you suggesting that online jobs website make it easier to find a job? A homeless person with a smartphone isn't the only one with access to the jobs website. Nor does the existence of such a website intrinsically create the jobs behind the ads on it.
A sibling commenter talks about the existence of the internet facilitating job creation through other means, but I don't think homeless people having smartphones has much bearing on this.
It's worth noting that income inequality has steadily increased in the last ~40 years at leastm (in the US), so talk of the internet lifting people out of poverty has to be considered in that context.
There is a silent class of homeless people whom I am not clear you are including when you state "homeless", and that is people living on cars and/or "couch-surfing". On the occasion I've seen it mentioned in articles, it seems that it is nearly impossible to come up with reliable numbers on the actual population of homeless people living under such conditions due to their transitory nature.
It is likely true that the genuinely destitute homeless people, which is comprised in large part of people who suffer severe psychological and mental disorders, are only minimally aided by cell phones. I suspect the way they actually benefit is they carry on their persons a means for those trying aid them to find them as well as a life line they can tug, should they so choose.
"Inequality" is a divisive term with no genuine academic definition. Another correlation is that as "inequality" has risen, so has the greatest reduction in people living in subsistence farming and abject poverty in history of mankind, a conclusion that would suggest that "inequality" positively correlates with greater human flourishing, but the real purpose of my mentioning this is to demonstrate that "inequality" is a largely meaningless metric, by itself, used for manipulating people not familiar with broader understanding of what has occurred for so many billions of people on the planet.
Yes they could contact an employer, but
Can they show up reliably on-time? Public transit costs money -> Homeless -> no address, so can't use a bank, cashing of checks can be done, but only if there is credit offered by an employer, or through charity of others. So from the get go, there's a geographic limitation w.r.t body-here types of work.
What about mental/computer work? Assume a smartphone. Still homeless, so no address means no bank. Could send a check to a P.O. Box maybe; but if there is company hardware you need to be vested with, that may not work out well. BYOD is a thing, and can work out, this is truly a success in that regard, but again, lack of address complicates things.
I mean, you aren't totally wrong, but I'm just not convinced that the homeless jobless experience has been revolutionized to the point people in poverty have been uplifted by the billions. If anything, infrastructure automation has allowed more to be done with less in terms of previously manual jobs, and enabled more efficient fund extraction from the average consumer through economies of scale. Especially in terms of rent seeking. If you look at the number of contracts entered into over a lifetime as a metric, software/the Internet has allowed an explosion in terms of the "one-sided contract" and has led to a social tilt away from the original purpose of the construct which was to serve as a meeting of the minds between equals.
Essentially, it's allowed for the carve out of unethical contracts at massive scale, and consolidation of capital intensive workflows through automation and standardization.
Can people learn and share? Yes. Are people all uplifted equally? I'd say no, and certain populations in particular are likely worse off. I'm thinking Kenya's predatory debt crisis, China's maturing surveillance state, and even the United States and U.K. are getting uncomfortably close to that event horizon.
Marketers ruined everything. We just wanted to be able to learn stuff. They had to turn that around and take it to the unhealthy extreme in the name of targeted advertising.
Thankfully, the neighborhood itself was tolerant enough to let them be -- I never saw them being kicked out, and why should they be? They're not making trouble, and life's hard enough if you don't have an address to your name. Give them the small, quiet dignity of a place to stay dry from the rain and browse reddit.